1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic parts assembling apparatus having a supervising/adjusting mode and an operating method therefor.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
At a job site where circuit board manufacturing apparatus such as electronic parts assembling apparatus are used, it has been a practice that the operators for computers (terminals) incorporated into the manufacturing apparatus are distinguished into usually one line supervisor (called as “super user”) for supervising the circuit board manufacturing apparatus and usually plural general operators (called as “general users”) for bringing the manufacturing apparatus into operation under the direction of the line supervisor.
In this case, with respect to the operation of the manufacturing apparatus, the line supervisor is given all of the authorities for line management including “supervising/adjusting” the apparatus, whereas the general operators are given only the authority to operate the apparatus on a regular basis, that is, the authority to practice the production only.
The line supervisor and the general operators make personal certifications to log in to the terminals of the manufacturing apparatus and to carry out input manipulation by means of a touch panel display. In the case of the general operators, the authority for manipulation is restrained because only those input and output screens which meet the authority given to him or her are displayed during the manipulation.
The reason why the levels of the authority are made different like this is to make the roles of those responsible for the line definite (i.e., making the responsible person identical to the line supervisor) and to enable beginners to perform their works easily as general operators.
On the other hand, it has been known as described in for example Japanese unexamined, published patent applications No. 5-274270 (1993-274270) and No. 2000-315189 that when a predetermined time period passes without any manipulation in the state that a user is enabled to manipulate a computer upon completion of logging-in with certification, the user in the log in state is automatically logged off of the computer.
It may be often the case that the line supervisor for a manufacturing apparatus leaves his or her job site for some reason during log-in in a supervising/adjusting mode or he or she may go home without performing logging-off. In this case, it may happen that a general operator erroneously manipulates the screens relating to the “supervising/adjusting” dedicated to the line supervisor and alters the settings of the apparatus for which he is not authorized. This may give raise to serious problems such as the stopping and malfunction of the manufacturing apparatus, the manufacturing of inferior goods, accident and the like.
In addition, the same problem as above may take place in a computer system of the field wherein there exist a superior supervisor who is given a special authority to supervise the entire system and general operators who utilize individual terminals of the system.